Tonight's guests--Hysterics--are yet another tally in the win column for Olympia, and much like H.P.P. and Sonskull, they honestly harken back to the early 80s hardcore heyday in such a rivetingly authentic way. Look for their 7" debut to drop anytime now on M'Lady's Records. And certainly don't miss 'em live if they come to your town. This is primo rip-roarin' ladyrager fun with rhythms fast n' loose but tight enough where they need to be, killer guitar shred alternating big dumb chunky barre chords with cool semi-metallic scaling, and a great vocalist who brings the right level of earnestness that's enough for you to know she means it and enough for her to make you feel it, but stopping well short of zealotry. The power in the music of Hysterics throttles through hulking amps, bashing drums, Stephie's vocal delivery, but also Stephie's eyes. She is seriously a great front-person for a HC band.

I had a great time with these ladies, too. We only had about three hours to hang out, but I'm quite sure they would be great to party with, and just great to talk music with. You can probably tell from the last 75 minutes of the show when they picked all the music. You can glean a keen sense of what each member brings to the band by their selections.

I submit further evidence of the rulingness of Hysterics through these video exhibits...

lights on!

lights off!

earlier drummer here, but this fun flies in the face of Evergreen campus busybody fun-ruiners!

And now...if you care...I'm playing in a trio with the sax/drums duo formerly known as Klondike & York on Thursday, July 28 at the DAM Haus (503 E Street, Davis CA 95616). We're called Crack the Case, and it's kind of a funny story how we came to fruition. I was recounting a funny moment in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent starring Jeff Goldblum as Detective Zach Nichols where Det. Nichols, after interviewing a bartender about a victim who visited that bar, began playing the piano at the bar, and it sounded very avant-garde. You could tell it was actually Goldblum playing the piano, and he was arpeggiating these weird chords. It was like Conlon Nancarrow meets Ted Falconi's guitar style in Flipper. I was sitting at a piano, applying what little bit I know of some intervals that I gleaned from watching the Sun Ra documentary Make a Joyful Noise at Dewey from Eternal Tapestry's house. He said that everytime he watches that vid, he feels like he's capable of achieving a level of musical accomplishment he's never reached before. And sure, I could feel it....but I guess I just hung onto it for a couple years, and then I let it out doing my Det. Zach Nichols impression. In the L&O:CI episode, Nichols puts crucial pieces of the case together while playing these strange arpeggiated chords. His facial expressions were the kookiest Eureka! moment ever, just like how you would imagine Goldblum portraying it...or living it in real life! It just so happens that during an impression, I was being secretly filmed on someone's flip-phone video camera, and Chad--the Klondike in Klondike & York--asked me about where I was playing piano. I explained the whole thing about Jeff Goldblum to him, and he was like, "Cool...we should play in a trio together!" Seriously? This guy's one of my ultimate Sacto musical idols, so it's like fantasy bandcamp. And it totally works for my busy life 'cos I don't even hafta practice. We convene at shows and just go to town.

This week, we start right at 7:30 in support of Pacific City Nightlife Vision Band (including Spencer Clarke of Skaters and Scott Simmons of Exiled Records and formerly Eat Skull) and Orphan Fairytale from Belgium. The masters of cosmiche muziek aus Davis known as Mucky the Ducky also play, and they've been especially nailing it lately. So, maybe I'll see you there, eh?!?!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

* The Woolen Men from Portland play live in Studio A!* The Woolen Men pick the last 45 minutes of music in Studio B!* A killer year for reissues & retrospectives keeps rolling!* We sample each song on the BBJr a/k/a Bob Bunko, Jr. LP!

Download this program within 365 days at this link...CLICK HERE for 192kbps rate.orCLICK HERE for 320kbps rate.or STREAM IT HERE by next Monday night.

From the antipodean slant of their musical selections at the end of tonights program, you can probably predict that our live-in-studio guests this week--The Woolen Men--would reveal strains of the shambolic minimalist pop that we've heard reverberating from down under. While some elements are more Australian, such as the throttling relentless rhythm, and other traits such as the starry-eyed yet dark romance, are more associated with New Zealand. But I suppose we seppos love all your music for how it's different from the all-too-familiar U.S. and U.K., and thus it might be natural for us yanks to meld together those traits to some extent. And that's what I think these Woolen Men are doing, and quite well!

Due to recent equipment failure on their first tour, tonight's live-in-Studio-A set from Woolen Men lacks any of their keyboard-driven songs, but I've included their rousing and prideful "West Coast" song which should make a lot of friends come together harmoniously to honor our heroes with lyrics as irrepressible as "This is Greg Sage/This is Greg Ginn/From Californ-eye-ay to Washington/Alright!"

Another Portland lesser-known comes to light this week with Captcha's release of the enigmatic experimentalist--Bob Bucko, Jr. better known by the official shorthand BBJr.--who's all over the free-music map from jazz to drone to noise, and ruling in each area and every adjacent territory he crosses. More than any full LP that has successfully thwarted recognizable songform in its entirety, Tearjerker has captivated me from start to finish more than anything since Olde English Spelling Bee issued Zephyrus by Squim four years ago, if not since 2009 when Weird Forest dropped Maurizio Bianchi's Das Platinzeitalter. This has got more of an old-school ESP-Disk vibe to it that's totally timeless. You can pick it up here...http://hbsp-2x.com/artwork/833827_BBJr_TEARJERKER.html

All the YouTube searches for Bob Bucko reveals him approaching some sorta songform with collaborators, but it's got some killer moments, too. Start here...

Screature have been a band jamming and rehearsing right under my nose in Sacramento for the last two years, but they finally played their debut live show last month at a packed house-show in Davis in support of Death Grips. To my surprise, my friend Liz Donner, who I've known since the days when her art gallery known as Fools Foundation was scene-HQ and the main Sacto venue partner for KDVS Presents, sings for the band. And sings very effectively and has a full repertoire of killer mic stand moves.

There are many bands--even many excellent bands--celebrating the dark art and heyday of the original postpunk, and Screature enter that field with a unique slant that creates their own space there with deep-pocketed kinetic drum-&-organ-bass rhythms, dramatic vocals, and a distinctive psych-punk guitar style that smacks of Chrome's Helios Creed now and then.

About Me

As long as DIY bands and artists keep me amazed, I will keep doing radio and extreme-blogging as a tribute to them. In case you are an old classmate looking for me, yes, this is "Rick Ele" here.
If you have material available in any format, please send it to...
KDVS Radio, ATTN: Music Dept, 14 Lower Freeborn Hall, Davis, CA 95616, USA (Please don't send it to my personal ATTN; you can trust KDVS Music Directors to get the good stuff added to the largest and best music library of any radio station this side of the Mississippi! And there are dozens of other really excellent DJs here who will play the good stuff if you send it!)
...wanna get in touch about anything else? rickele(AT)gmail(DOT)com